"Brandon Browner's eyes were never too far from the NFL.

He spent four years playing in the Canadian Football League, practicing outdoors in temperatures so cold your nose didn't drip so much as freeze. To say Browner never stopped looking across the border was much more than a metaphor.

"I kept my room TV on the NFL Network," he said. "Throughout the whole time I was in the CFL. It never left the NFL Network unless I was playing a video game. That was a must-have."

That long-distance relationship is what makes this season, and Browner's selection as a Pro Bowl alternate, one of the most unlikely, endearing stories not just on the Seahawks, but in the entire league.

"Brandon just comes out of nowhere," coach Pete Carroll said.

Well, it was Calgary, actually. He played four years for the Stampeders before he was signed by the Seahawks last January, his first NFL contract since Denver in 2006.

He has intercepted six passes, the most by a Seahawk in four years and tied for fourth most in the league. Five came during a stretch in which he became the first Seattle player in 20 years to intercept at least one pass in four consecutive games."